


Razing Penelope

by Icepool



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, INDEFINITE HIATUS, Multi, Nightmares, References to the Odyssey, Torture, hidekane, non-chronological chapters, possible triggers, puns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 20:41:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5980408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icepool/pseuds/Icepool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aogiri Tree captures Hide shortly after the Raid on Anteiku's bitter conclusion. While trapped by the strongest ghoul organization in Tokyo, his mysterious past and devotion to Kaneki catches Eto's special attention. Hide survives each day with the help of questionable allies and refusing to fall into despair.</p><p>Eto, after five years, destroys the most adamantine person she's had the pleasure to decipher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Nightmare, Actually

**Author's Note:**

> Long ago (last summer), I promised a commenter, who mysteriously disappeared, a story featuring a gorefest. I'm not to certain where I want this story to lead, but as each chapter of :re passes, my hope of Hide returning unscathed slightly diminishes. Here's my take (as of chapter 63's release) on Hide's whereabouts. 
> 
> Not that I believe I'm right, but let's hope I'm entirely wrong.

“This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper,”  _ The Hollow Men, _ T.S. Eliot. 

Unable to see past the radius of his elbows, Hide stretched his hands out into the gray void surrounding him and found nothing besides disgustingly warm water swirling against his fingertips. The silt beneath his bare knees –he wasn’t wearing anything it seemed- felt too unnaturally familiar and defined to belong in the bottom of a marsh, but  he couldn’t dredge up enough care to feel concerned about his surroundings. 

_ This is only a dream, _ Hide determined once he placed the alkaline taste left on his tongue: anesthesia. After surviving years of a rotten luck streak, the thought of waking up, unharmed,  _ outside _ stirred up a burst of laughter. The empty, bitter quality surprised the blonde back into silence. 

His eyes adjusted to the darkness around him. With no hint of blue in the sky, or where the sky should be, there was no indication the sun would rise. Hide didn't mind; the quiet settled his frayed nerves. Years of searching and fighting to survive to the next day had smoothed down his urgency to bounce around and cram as much experience into his life as possible. Most importantly, this peaceful scene wasn't even real. He could take a moment to breathe. 

As the thought processed, a figure in the endless gray shifted. With a few unhurried blinks, the mass condensed into a humanoid shape. The thing rested close enough for Hide to notice its head drooped against its narrow chest like a hanged man’s after the rope drew slack. The creature worried his hands together in his lap. Behind the white curtain of hair, almost iridescent in comparison to the void around the two, Hide knew his eyes would mirror the surrounding gray perfectly. 

“Kaneki?” Hide asked, a smile already slicing across his disfigured face. At the sound of his friend's voice, Kaneki's shoulders hunched closer together. 

Barely moving his lips, Kaneki whispered, “Please don't hate me.” The request drove sharp metal into Hide’s heart ( ** _re-ject_** **_re-ject_** ). After all the two had been through together, how could he believe a simple change in biology was so unforgivable? The human cleared the negative thoughts from his head with a dizzying, vigorous shake.

“I could never hate my best bud!” Hide reached out to comfort the wretched half ghoul, but the trembling from his hand and mutilated arm stopped him just short of touching Kaneki’s pale shoulder. His fingers closed into a weak fist, and Hide pulled his hand back. 

Despite their knees almost brushing, years of pain and loss spread the two worlds apart.

Kaneki’s head rose. Distinctively human eyes looked into Hide’s. “I hope, one day, you may forgive me,” he said as if already convinced no amount of atonement could make up for abandoning his friend for so many years.  

Hide assured him there was nothing to forgive, “Why are you being so serious? You haven't done anything wrong,” yet his heart tightened in his chest. The separation intensified into palpable galaxies in the air. 

“I’m sorry, Hide,” the half ghoul reached beneath the dark water, “we have to eat in order to survive.” Black liquid, too thick to be water, trailed off the meager stone Kaneki freed with a smooth jerk. Hide’s eyebrows drew together as a fuzzy memory clawed to the surface of his mind.

Water droplets fell musically into the stream. 

His heart pounded out through his veins

Kaneki lied so peacefully still 

His  _ eyes _ … 

A shudder wracked down and rattled each individual vertebrae in the human’s spine. He couldn't pretend Kaneki’s silver irises were all he saw. No, the gray was piping, concrete, and light reflecting off the flooded floor. They were in  _ that  _ place.  

Hide looked around the underground crossroad in nervous flashes. Dozens of bodies -mostly unattached arms, legs, and torsos- lied in seeping heaps around the estranged friends. Blood dripped into the stream from open wounds, eyes, and final grimaces. Ruined masks slipped off to reveal people who he had once watched smile over steaming cups of coffee. The sweet rainwater ran nearly black with their entrails. Bile rose in the back of Hide’s throat.

Ignoring the horror around them, Kaneki held a considerable chunk of dismembered thigh as an offering. 

The blond numbly shook his head, ignoring the saliva pooling in his mouth. After devoting all his energy in remaining as Kaneki’s sanctuary, he had to be normal, human, smiling Hide. 

“Hide, do you not- do you want to die?” Blood trickled through the half ghoul’s fingers and stained crimson trails down his arm. 

“I don't! I want to get out of here and go back to college and suffer through boring classes together and look at the stars, but not like…” Hide said until the words hit too close to the inescapable truth. Kaneki continued gazing at Hide’s faltering expression. The tender understanding softening his eyes and lifting the corners of his mouth led the human to close his own eyes in shame. 

“I understand,” Kaneki’s soothing voice drifted closer, “but I also, selfishly, want you to live.” 

A stomach turning, gruesome noise similar to someone gnawing on an apple smacked beside Hide’s ear. Sweet smelling liquid sprayed the side of his face. 

A warm hand caressed his cheek, alleviating the universe separating the pair. Hide tilted into the embrace. His body followed the movement, and Kaneki wrapped his unoccupied arm around his shoulders, the only barrier keeping Hide from slipping beneath the amiable current and never being found again. He reminded himself this was only a dream.

_ A nightmare, actually.  _

Lips slid against the human’s with the gentle nature of a poet. Hide surrendered to the kiss without an ounce of revulsion to the ghoul. This was only a cruel rewrite of what occurred years ago beneath the city.

The taste jolted Hide’s cells back to life. His stomach buzzed with hunger, rearranging his entire thought process. Stalled muscles desired to pull Kaneki closer, to rip and claw for more of the heavenly taste, to live. So this is the trade-off, Hide thought. 

His worn inner-self also rose back to life. He wanted to scream, free himself from the half ghoul’s restraining arms, escape the cruel joke. The human needed to recoil and somehow remove the taste of sin from his mouth. 

The polar thoughts numbed Hide into not reacting at all.

Despite wanting to turn away and vomit, Hide swallowed the meat pushed into his mouth. Kaneki chewed another awful bite and kissed him again and again while Hide wound his arms and legs around him tighter and tighter. He wanted to disintegrate into ash. The body that could soak in the sun’s warmth, comprehend the complex emotion in late nineties music, and laugh with Kaneki at Big Girl betrayed him with complete worthlessness. 

Hide could no longer be the humanity Kaneki needed to remain sane. 

The kiss slowed, and Kaneki pulled away. Hide willed his eyelids apart. One red iris surrounded by an endless black sea met his gaze. He brushed the prominent veins with the edge of his fingers in absolute wonder. The half ghoul startled at the delicate touch, but Hide’s amazed expression convinced him to allow the contact. 

A sound like ice on a pond cracking beneath some poor fool’s weight radiated from behind Kaneki. On the border of Hide’s vision, three red rinkaku tendrils condensed into existence. His stomach dropped into some unending chasm, but Hide remained intertwined with the self-proclaimed monster

(I knew. I always knew, Kaneki). 

The glittering weapons curled into a shape resembling the top of a heart before scales ran down the surface like a muscle tensing, transforming them into something more sinister. Every cell in Hide’s body screamed he needed to run. Now. 

“Is this how you felt?” Hide asked, not sure how much the broad question encompassed. His friend smiled and pulled him against his warm chest. He felt a brief kiss against the top of his head. Kaneki’s scent -smudged ink and lingering soap- replaced the smell of rust burning his nose. 

Without warning, every thought that ever took place in Hide’s head evaporated into tormenting flames.

Kaneki's rinkaku sliced his skin and stretched the incisions as they dug deeper and deeper. Pain burrowed into Hide’s back and cracked his spine into pointed shards. His entire life became the agony between his shoulder blades and lower back. 

His fingers clawed into Kaneki’s steel arms as the kagune ripped him apart and pushed his insides out of place. He heard the awful click of his vertebrae smacking together ( ** _re-ject_** **_re-ject_** ). Two masses nested beneath his skin and took root inside him. They felt alive and squirmed into the rest of his organs. His stomach threatened to finally purge the flesh. He wanted it _out_. 

There was no way Hide survived. The things scraped through his veins and crushed his body from the inside. His lungs collapsed, heart stopped, and stomach burst into every unoccupied crevice beneath his skin. He was nothing more than a stapled together mass of incomprehensible misery. There was no chance Kaneki would accept him as anything other than Normal Hide ( **_re-ject_ ** ). 

Not sure if he were still alive or dragged to some afterlife of eternal torment, Hide pleaded with any nearby deity to allow him the bliss of oblivion. 

No god granted him mercy -not that he had ever been religious- and he recalled as he tried to escape the horrifying nightmare something his absent father once said, “The stake that sticks out gets hammered down.” He had wasted his entire life making a mockery of that single memory of his parent. After Kanou came and rewired everything by fucking with his friend’s biology, Hide had certainly been pummeled back into his place. 

Kaneki ripped the kagune free and gave each tendril a tiny flick to remove the bloody droplets.  As if exhausted by the effort of ruining his friend, his head lolled onto Hide’s shoulder. Tears trickled down the curve of the blond’s arm, and Hide shivered from the abnormally sticky texture. 

The first artificial half ghoul lost the slight luminescence brightening his features. Hide watched, overwhelmingly useless, as fractures split across his friend until he resembled a picture beneath broken glass. Kaneki's body crumbled into weightless pieces and dissipated completely out of Hide's trembling grasp. Somehow the pain of failing Kaneki again outweighed the torment crippling his body. 

Razed, he looked down to where Kaneki had rested, and saw liquefied eyes drip down his skin. 

Hide jolted awake, paralyzed from either lingering anesthesia or sleep. Unable to regain any motor control, his heart pounded in his ears and throat. He wanted to scream, but even his jaw remained locked in place. Tears welled in his eyes, but they couldn't fall and relieve him of the pressure driving him insane. 

In the the back of his mind, Hide knew the dream didn't deviate too far from the truth. A large gash in his inner cheek indicated he had bit through the flesh and flooded his tongue with the taste of his own blood. The valley between his shoulder blades and base of his spine throbbed as if two new hearts were stitched beneath the bones. Cold, silver metal stung his naked, feverish skin and assured him that he was in unbearable reality. Kanou’s infamous table had been his last sight before the nightmare blindsided him. The lab even had the same metallic tang to the air as V-14 did that hellish night. 

A fresh wave of panic seized his insides when he registered the sound of someone talking in the room. Aogiri's personal mad scientist spoke notes into a portable recorder while his fingers dug into the pulse point on Hide’s right wrist, “Age may… another Floppy… reaction to anesthesia… awake during surgery… BP and heart rate steady… variables...” The words broke off and faded, most likely due to Hide’s unreliable state of consciousness. 

His will threatened to crumble under the five year weight. The excruciating paralysis made him briefly wonder, what the hell am I fighting so hard for? Unable to come up with an answer by the time the doctor moved to violate his incisions, Hide let his innerself fall to pieces when two revelations darkened his outlook.

No one would ever save him. 

No one needed him anymore. 


	2. A Livable Unpleasantry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hide wakes from the Anteiku raid inside a prison cell and begins his sentence as an Aogiri Tree prisoner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter 68 spoilers for :re breathed new life into me. I feel like a phoenix rising from the ashes. 
> 
> Please give a shout out to Bulla124 for being an astounding editor and overall total sweetheart. I'm very grateful to have such a dedicated person work with me.

“We should have been wiser; we should have died yesterday,”  _ The Host _ , Stephenie Meyer

Stars had replaced the dripping gray concrete. Instead of wondering where he was or who was carrying him, Hide mentioned to his captor, “It's stopped raining.” He imagined the man -the broad chest his arm was wedged against engendered a masculine mental picture- turn his face to the sea of glittering specks beginning to peek around the haze of rain clouds. A dull throbbing in the base of Hide’s skull drowned out any reply from the uncomfortably muscular man who smelled similar to the time a piece of uncooked chicken fell into a hidden crevice of Hide’s refrigerator for several weeks. 

Like a plug coaxed out of a sink, Hide’s energy and vision drained until he spiraled back into unconsciousness. After seeing his friend completely lose his composure in the sewers, Hide welcomed the nothingness without a struggle, while the ticking of a hidden clock beat like a mechanical heart. 

Minutes or hours later, a cold, wet bundle of disjointed limbs slammed into the crook of the blond’s shoulder. Without the urge to crawl out of the trance-like state numbing his senses, Hide allowed himself to be thrown about the dark room like a forgotten sack of potatoes along with the other person. Despite his hazy state, the smell of blood made his nose twitch, although there was an undeniable, salty undertone just grazing his limited conscious. Faintly over a motor of some sort, Hide heard broken sobbing that rivaled Kaneki’s wretched lamentation.

Hide’s body was barely on the brink of consciousness, but he soothed the tormented soul lying halfway on top of him with a few jerky pats from his mangled arm. “S’okay, man. I'm here with you,” he slurred out past the cotton coating his dry mouth.

The sobbing increased in volume as a response, but a hand fumbled for Hide’s. The icy fingers sent a shiver through the blond. Hide squeezed the hand weakly and swirled away with more trepidation than from the previous blackout, thinking, 

_ I know you, don't I? _

Finally, the human woke with an ear-shattering groan –at least in comparison to the unnatural silence enveloping him– spilling from his parched throat. Hide peeled himself off the cool, smooth stone floor and made a clawing motion against a not-so-smooth stone wall to hoist himself into a vertical position. If not for the dull, throbbing ache  _ everywhere _ , he would have known he was in bad shape by the alarming amount of cracking his joints gave as he dragged himself to his feet. 

The cell was also an indicator Hide had once again bitten off more than he could chew. 

There wasn't a word other than “cell” to describe the compact room. Hide walked a few paces around the rectangular border while stretching the creaks out of his arms. To his disappointment, the three walls made from stacked, off-white rock were sturdy and featured no windows. He ambled over to the line of iron bars completing the cell and gave each metal pole a solid kick. Other than a brief ring and briefer rattle from the door, the human was unable to mark any progress toward his freedom. 

Hide peered as best as he could through the bars. Instead of a cell block similar to a prison, his humble abode seemed to be the only feature in a short hallway. Being singled out in isolation didn't contribute any high hopes for his immediate future.

The sound of approaching footsteps cut Hide's disheartening inspection short. Going for an ‘I’m totally not freaking out look’, he crossed his arms behind his head, but his mutilated forearm protested with enough tormenting persuasion to force Hide to drop them back down by his sides. That gentle press hurt far more than the origin of the wound itself. 

A ghoul wearing a crimson mask over the bottom half of his face not so much walked, but glided into the hallway carrying a bowl with water sloshing haphazardly against the rim and folded fabric in his grasp. His eyes refused to turn in Hide’s direction, so the smooth halt at his door shocked him to a small degree. 

“Wash yourself and exchange your outfit with this one,” he spoke in a neutral tone, giving Hide the correct assumption that he wasn't worthy of emotion from the ghoul. 

After a soft click when the white haired stranger turned an ancient silver key, he held the bundle out in Hide’s general direction. Not willing to press his luck, the human said around a smile, “Thank you,” and took the items into his surprisingly weak arms. His mind assured the load was nothing in comparison to the heavy stacks of paperwork he was used to carting around, but the strain on his muscles indicated the weight of the drab outfit and glass encased water was pushing his limits. 

The ghoul stared at him like someone sat a lukewarm bowl of rice in front of him and expected a thank you for the meal. 

Hide swirled around before he unintentionally made the man’s ‘to be eaten later list’ and quickly undressed while facing the opposite wall after setting the pile on the floor. The intimidation tactic failed to faze him as he quickly dragged a freezing washcloth over his disgusting flesh. Blood, sewer water, and other unmentionables had turned his skin a light brown color that darkened when the cloth passed over it. He could only imagine how similar to a landfill he smelled. 

Goosebumps rose across his entire upper body as he wrung out his defiled rag. “Did you bring me a bowl that was catching icicle runoff? This is ridiculously cold, man,” Hide asked, suppressing a shiver once it came into contact with his flesh again. The water seemed glacial enough to cover him in a thin layer of frost at any moment. 

After receiving a silence just as frigid in return, Hide decided he was clean enough. He dropped the ruined cloth into the equally squalid bathwater and yanked on a shirt and pair of sweatpants, both dark colors he'd never wear outside this situation. Toning down his easy grin to a more neutral expression, he pivoted to face the ghoul. Hide caught a faint heave of disappointment behind the red mask as his door swung open once more. 

“Follow me,” he said, turning and expecting Hide to follow like a misplaced duckling. The human frowned at the demeaning mental image, but obediently trailed after the taller man. 

The Aogiri member paraded Hide through several hallways, each with a variety of curious ghouls. He heard only snippets of conversation, but they all seemed to revolve around the novelty of a human being kept prisoner, instead of torn to edible scraps or experimented on by Kaneki’s infamous doctor, Kanou. The whispered name sent razor-winged butterflies rampaging in Hide’s already nauseated stomach. 

They passed a communal bathroom that featured an eclectic mass of rust stains, laundry room filled with dark red capes, and an abandoned mess hall before pausing at an out of place wooden door. “You'll be spending a fair amount of time in here,” the ghoul stated, pulling out yet another key and pushing the door ajar. Besides a metal floor lamp and recording device sitting on a metal table with two nondescript chairs, the room itself was unremarkable. 

_ Ignoring all the blood, anyway,  _ Hide thought to himself. 

Brown splatters decorated the stone walls and ceiling with the eloquence of a true macabre mastermind. Dots, smears, and puddles of flaking blood covered every surface, almost as if an artist twirled in a wide circle while swinging around a bucket filled with minced organs. 

“I'm guessing you guys think I'm important or something?” Hide asked, hooking his thumbs into his pockets.  

An eerie flash intensified the white and red ghoul’s stare. Before he could respond or continue ignoring Hide, a blur of black and blue stormed into the room. 

“Why the hell is a  _ human  _ getting the grand tour?” A teenage ghoul demanded once the door slammed closed behind him. Just as with the unplaceable crying, Hide felt a sense of familiarity regarding the ghoul. The dark hair, soured expression, and light -bordering on floating- stance evoked the memory of an excruciatingly torturous headache. 

The human slid half a step back from the tumultuous, dark cloud emanating from the kid. The glare he sent toward his guide could have decimated nations. He clearly held some authority considering his brazen entrance, but only enough to irritate him with responsibilities and not hold any influence in the organization’s decisions. 

“Consider him an informant.” 

“Tatara, there's no reason to keep him. Interrogate the bastard, then send him to the cleaners or to Kanou like the others.” 

Others? 

“He's caught the Owl’s attention,” he said with a tone equivalent to a judge pounding the gavel: case closed. “Since you feel so strongly, I'll leave him under your care.” Hide glanced over the enraged boy. Being hated on the basis of his species didn't seem like a good start to their relationship. Images of wasting away in his cell while the ghoul laughed at his misfortune swept through his mind. 

Tatara swept out of the room before the teenager could stutter out a coherent response. “Why does he always give  _ me _ his unwanted scraps?” he grumbled. 

“I think he just left with the keys,” Hide pointed out. A sharp glare dried out any more syllables before they left his tongue. The irate ghoul didn't inspire the same sense of dread as Tatara, but giving him an actual reason to hate Hide didn't seem like a smart idea.

“Shut the fuck up, you no good snack. What does he want me to do with you? Babysit?” The blond shrugged in response, finally drawing the similarities between Touka fighting Kaneki in the alley after Nishio set loose the half ghoul’s hidden bloodlust, and the kid who looked more ready to break his neck than to lead him back to his cell. 

The ghoul cursed again and led Hide out of the interrogation room. He looked between the split hallways for a few moments before the human rose a pointed finger in the direction he originated from. Losing steam, Touka’s brother let Hide retrace his steps while keeping his hands discontentedly shoved deep in his pockets. 

Once the duo arrived at the blond’s personal hallway, a man with an unmistakable stature come into view. Doctor Kanou waited, holding a box decorated with a red cross and twirling a silver key around the index finger of his free hand, “I was told we have an injured guest,” he explained to the ghoul as a greeting and sent a welcoming smile to the human behind him. 

Hide smothered the impulse to punch the creep in his smug, unprotected nose. He never felt the need to indulge in violence, but the satisfaction of crushing the mad scientist’s cartilage into a bent hook for the rest of his life was excruciatingly tempting. Instead, he remained infuriatingly silent as the doctor bypassed his unenthusiastic caretaker and looked him over with greedy brown eyes. The gaze peeled past his skin and prodded throughout his body more efficiently than any scalpel could. God, the  _ potential  _ he saw in this boy.

Without asking for something as simplistic as permission, Kanou snatched Hide’s left wrist and pulled his arm closer to his eyes.  Hide choked down the pain while his shirt sleeve brutally rolled over his elbow and gave a shit eating grin once his injuries were visible. The abrupt switch from constant, dull ache to driving splinters of sharp agony nearly took his breath away. That white haired bastard had noticed his battle wounds and reported them to his other ringleaders. “I got pretty lucky here, didn't I, Doc?” 

“I'd say so. I've never seen a ghoul leave a mark like this one before. Have you, Ayato?” the doctor mused. Two imperfect circles lined with teeth imprints lied in the meatiest section of Hide’s left forearm. 

The deep bite marks showcasing all the way into the fatty tissue layer beneath his skin intrigued Ayato enough for him to saunter over and look. “Well,” he said, stepping to the human’s other side and jerking Hide’s other arm inches from his lips, “It's weird, but not impossible.” His dark eyes bore into Hide’s, “Who the hell made this sissy bite?” 

Hide shrugged, using the movement to turn both his arms out of the other’s grasps. “No idea! There was so much going on that it all just kind of blurred together.” With the dubious twin expressions made from that explanation, the blond looked down and rubbed the tips of his toes across the floor, “I mean... It's so embarrassing. This happened right after I ran from my post like a total coward.” He'd much rather be seen as a noncommittal fool than retell what truly happened. 

The self-deprecating answer alleviated their interest. Kanou bent over and took a brown bottle and hand towel from his supplies. “Being in such an intense battlefield must have been scary,” the man said while he uncapped the disinfectant and held the towel beneath Hide’s arm, “This may sting a little,” he warned before tipping the clear liquid over the wounds. 

Hide mentally checked out until the blistering pain dulled to a livable unpleasantry. Despite not uttering a syllable during the ordeal, his entire arm trembled like an autumn leaf caught in a strong breeze. A brief flash of Kaneki slamming his head into the sewer walls shoved Hide's pain into perspective. He could endure this and whatever else these extremists did to him.

No matter the situation, the human had to be normal, smiling, Hide. Kaneki depended on him to be the home where he could always return. 

His expression must have slipped into something serious; Ayato’s look had become just as piercing as Kanou’s. Hide forced out an unsteady breath, “You weren't lying.”

After wrapping Hide's injury with gauze, the doctor told him to not be shy about visiting him if any more discomforts revealed themselves. Hide promised he would and thanked the man for his service. Disgust writhed like invisible worms in his veins. He knew with every iota of his being that if he ever saw Doctor Kanou without a supervisor, he would come out an entirely different person or species. Kanou packed his supplies and left with a cheery wave once he tossed the key over Hide’s head into Ayato’s open palm.  

Noticing that Ayato gave a similar disapproving look as Aogiri's mad scientist left, Hide confessed, “I know he's a doctor and all, but that look in his eyes made me nervous.” 

“It should. The man's a fucking psycho.”

  
Hide walked back into his cell with that thought echoing throughout his head. The metal door closed with the finality of the adamantine gate that separated the dead from ever returning to the land of the living. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and I'll do my best to not take another month to update again. ^_^'


	3. A Lifetime's Worth of Questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm truly sorry that I'm so slow with updates.

 "The devil's voice is sweet to hear," Stephen King

An hour after Ayato declared babysitting a human was beneath him and trounced out of the hallway, the cotton feeling spread from Hide’s throat to the back of his eyes before creeping along his veins. By the time the blond realized he should sit down, his vision had become overrun by ebony spiders, and he felt as weightless as a balloon slipping through a child's careless fingers. Hide collapsed against the metal bars he was standing beside, too surprised to cry out.

Ayato returned with a package of sweet bread and bottle of tap water when the last of the sun’s rays had sank over the horizon. The bread had laid in his room for over half a year after being purchased during his reconnaissance to find the ghoul who smelled like Rize. Seeing his sister play the role of a blushing waitress for the majority of a week had filled him with even more contempt for his peacemaking, idiot sister. Yet when Yamori spoke of all the “fun” he wanted to have with the Anteiku staff, something more raw and discernible overshadowed his sibling rivalry.

A mere plastic wrapped roll wasn't worth bringing up so many useless memories.

The poor attempt at a meal fell to the ground with a thump when Ayato noticed the blond slumped against the bars with every limb locked in an awkward angle. His thoughts immediately recalled the handful of messy human suicides committed on Aogiri territory. Tatara was going to actually kill him this time.

Ayato bent at his knees, balancing on the balls of his feet to get a closer look at the potential corpse. A long, swollen line of red stretched from his right eyebrow to his jaw. From the human’s haphazard position, Ayato decided it was more likely he took a surprise fall than collapsing from an intentional action. Just as the ghoul began to wonder if the idiot had bludgeoned himself in one lucky blow, Hide’s eyes languidly rolled against the backs of his eyelids. The new injury had distracted him from the slight rise and fall of the blond’s shoulders as he breathed.

A boot connected with the human’s shoulder and Hide flopped over like a rag doll further back into the cell. He groaned, “What the hell?”

“I had to decide if you were stupid enough to kill yourself by accident.”

Hide shakily rolled upright, but the vehement swirling in his head wrenched him back onto the ground. He took several deep breaths to clear away the fresh wave of arachnids obscuring his vision. The air whistled past several long expanses of desert into his greedy lungs. His entire throat felt like it was cracking from desiccation.

The ghoul decided Hide’s pitiful display was legitimate when compared to his refusal to exhibit any hint of discomfort earlier. Ayato crossed his arms over his chest. “I'll go find Dr. Kanou,” he mentioned in a tone meant more for himself than the other occupant in the quiet hallway, “He said he'd be finished by now anyway.

Hide forced his eyes to focus on the ghoul’s before he could pivot on his heel and return with Kanou. “I don’t trust that maniac. Please, Ayato, this is just low blood sugar or something just as dumb.” He seemed to notice the near slip in his façade and covered his face with the back of his uninjured arm in the middle of his plea. The blond felt that he'd fade away again at any given moment.

Ayato toyed with the discarded water bottle under his foot for a moment before rolling it between the bars of Hide’s cell. The resulting nudge against his side gave Hide enough prompt to successfully sit up. His day could only get better if sitting upright felt like a hard earned victory. He mentioned that aloud to his companion, who stared obstinately at the wall to avoid social interaction, and took several long drags of the clear water. The cool liquid coating his abused throat tasted at that moment better than even Touka’s heavenly cappuccinos. Not knowing the nature of the Kirishimas’ relationship, he kept the thought concealed in his private mind.

Less than half an hour after finishing his laughable meal, Hide was back to his usual, animated self. He launched into a dramatic story that Ayato couldn't care less about between bites of the sweet bread and rolled into another after he completed both. “And all those jerks shot bottle rockets at me! My clothes still have little burn holes from where they hit me.” Without pause, the blond sat up straighter.

“So, did you guys decide to nab me on a whim or something? Everyone seemed surprised I was here and not on their dinner plate, even you.”

The ghoul begrudgingly grumbled out, “Tatara expects me to clean up all the trash he discards without question. I have no idea why you're so damn important.” He tapped his foot against the wall, sending a shower of dirt to the floor. “What first gave away our leader’s impulsiveness?”

Hide nodded in understanding despite the obvious jab. “I kind of guessed since there's no access to a bathroom here. Are you gonna take me to one, or am I gonna piss in the corner like a kenneled dog? Maybe I can have a bucket? That'd be nice.”

Ayato then realized just how troublesome keeping a human alive truly was. Especially a talkative one.

Twice a day he took Hide to the vacant restroom in the adjacent hallway. The first visit redefined the concept of awkward for Ayato. While he stood indecisively in the doorway wondering just how much supervision guard duty required, Hide laughed, “Dude, you don't have to stay in here. Can't you just kick the door in if I take too long?” Ayato’s face remained a dark cherry while he waited in the hallway with his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

An unspoken agreement generated between the odd pair over the course of a week. Hide played the role of a well-trained pet by making minimal comments about Ayato’s inability to make edible food and avoiding distasteful behavior such as bargaining to be set free, declaring ghouls were monsters, or losing his grim calm to screaming panic as many other humans were prone to do. In return, Ayato brought luxuries in the form of toothpaste, toiletries, and Hide’s favorite, a cot.

The stretched canvas provided divine support in comparison to the unyielding stone floor. After a few hours of complete silence, Hide would hold onto both sides of the hollow, metal support bars and rock against the floor to create echoing hits. The blond referred to the cot as a hammock and would try to balance on one side of the crossed rods with little success and consequently tipped onto the ground multiple times a day.

His antics would typically drive Ayato up the wall, but Hide's refusal to fall into any pre-existing schemas he usually faced with prisoners kept him from voicing his complaints. Also, hearing Hide's body hit the floor with a groan of defeat was more humorous than annoying.

After a week of having Ayato as his only companion, Tatara and his palpable disapproval materialized by Hide’s door. The human lost his precarious balance on the edge of his cot and tumbled onto the floor. Their eyes met and Hide found himself grateful that Ayato was tasked with keeping him alive.

The ghoul turned a key, previously hidden by his long sleeve, and said, “Eto has asked for you.”

Hide peeled himself off the stone, “Are they your leader?”

Tatara swept down the hallway and the blond had to jog once more to keep up with his long legs.

The two came to a halt in front of the interrogation room. A shiver ran down Hide’s spine as his captor pushed the door open.

Rust– blood– overpowered the rest of his senses. Fresh patterns in every shade of shocking crimson to deep plum oozed down the stained wall in a silent tribute to the horror from less than an hour before. The thought comforted Hide in a malicious fashion; at least he wasn't alone in whatever suffering the terrorists had in store for him. In addition to the new bloodstains, a dark bag and notebook with colorful notes spilling from the pages flanked the girl sitting at the table.

Eto, a small ghoul in a hooded red smock and covered head to toe in stark white bandages, lifted her chin off her intertwined fingers when the door handle clicked against the wall. An impenetrable shadow obscured her eyes, but the human felt their gaze rake over him like disembodied talons. Her swaying feet, carefree as a child's, completed the fuzzy mental picture in Hide’s mind.

His outburst surprised both the ghouls and himself to a small degree, “Oh shit. You're Takatsuki Sen.”

Whatever Eto had been expecting from the blond, it wasn't him immediately recognizing her human persona. Her hands fell onto the table and she tipped on the back two legs of her chair, howling with feminine laughter. “Ah, Nagachika, I _knew_ you'd be a treat.” A final fit of giggles escaped her covered mouth before she settled into her original composure. “Sit down, I have a lifetime’s worth of questions to ask.”

Hide bashfully rubbed at his cheek, ambled to the chair opposite to the half ghoul, and pulled out his chair with a piercing scrape. Eto’s head turned to the side from the relaxed way the human walked and sat leaned against the back of his sideways seat.

With the feathery wave of a bandaged hand, Tatara left the room.

“He's not very talkative, is he?” Hide asked once the air stilled.

“Not usually. Unless his feelings are hurt,” she answered easily. Did she expect him to return the favor? If so, the half ghoul would either need to drop the gossiping friends act and reveal her true intentions, or be prepared for a long interview.

Eto pulled at the fabric covering her head with the leisure of a cat basking in the sunlight. The bandages drooped into a series of loops around her neck and revealed Kaneki’s favorite author. Hide wished he had paid more attention to her behavior at the book signing.

After shaking out her verdant hair with her fingers, the ghoul said, “I remember you asking me to address your book to Kaneki Ken, Kane from Friday and Ki from Thursday.”

Feeling a change in the easy atmosphere, Hide leaned off his chair and placed his hands in his lap, “I did.”

“At that point, did you know he was a ghoul?” The human’s heart squeezed uncomfortably in his chest.

“I'm not really sure when I knew for certain. But a month ago? Yeah, I think so.” It didn't seem in his best interest to lie. Yet.

Eto’s gaze caught Hide's with a predatory gleam. His mental image of following Tatara like a duckling mutated to a lab mouse glancing through a thin glass barrier at the scientist’s unruly calico. The ghoul seemed to lose the need to blink as she took in his features. “Interesting,” she purred. “Most humans wouldn't go through such trouble for a ghoul.”

Hide assumed she was no longer thinking of the book signing. “Him being a ghoul doesn’t change the fact that he’s my friend.” Eto’s lips curled upwards.

“You have a revolutionary way of thinking. Do you feel the same for all ghouls?” Besides her emphasis on being human or ghoul, the way Eto spoke reminded him of Kaneki enough for loneliness to wash through his veins like acid.

Hide gave a pinched smile, “Why not?” He broke away from the contest and looked to the flashing red light of the recorder. “But you don't really care what I think about ghouls, do you? That'd be a pretty lame reason to go through all the trouble of keeping me alive.”

“Would you prefer me to be more direct, Nagachika-kun?” Eto stressed his last name as she leaned out of her seat and pulled a familiar, grimacing mask from the floor before placing it lovingly on the table between them. Hide's throat swelled to a painful degree. “I'm interested, no, enthralled with the two of you. I want to know exactly what happened before Noro found you and Kaneki in a field of corpses, dying together in a tender embrace.” Her eyes darted to the wound marring the blond’s arm.

At that moment, Hide decided he would never disclose the nightmarish events to anyone, much less Eto. In her eyes, he was just a weak obstacle to her true goal, understanding Kaneki. He had no idea what the terrorist wanted with his friend, but she was too dangerous for Hide to ignore.

He laughed, “Kaneki would have a field day knowing his favorite author is so interested in him.”

Eto smoothed her messy notebook open to a blank page. “Let's focus on you for today.” And thus began the most nerve-wracking interview of Hide’s life.

“Is your full name Nagachika Hideyoshi?”

“Yes?”

“Oh, we forgot to mention your CCG ID was still attached when you were found.”

“That makes sense, though wouldn't that make it pointless to ask if you already knew my name?”

“For this relationship to benefit the both of us, I needed to make certain you were being honest.”

The banter continued for the better part of an hour with Eto making statements or asking questions and Hide responding with a generalized answer, trying not to give too much away. The half ghoul noticed his diversions, but allowed them to continue for this first visit, ticking the amount in her notebook.

“So you're not concerned about being in the heart of a ghoul organization?” Eto inquired last.

“I think I'll make it out of here alive. I mean, I could be wrong, but I'd be too dead to really care that much,” he replied, the words slightly distorted from the way his cheek laid against his hand.

Eto clicked a button on the recording device, satisfied with their conversation for the day. “I hope to see you again real soon, Hide-kun,” she said as if he had any choice in the matter, shooing him away in the same manner as Tatara earlier.

Instead of the laconic, red-eyed ghoul, Ayato waited for Hide to come crawling out. To his surprise, the blond walked into the hallway, unharmed and with a complaint already pouring from his lips, “Ayato, I haven't talked that much since my evil lit teacher gave us a ten minute speech as our final!”

No one came out of the room conscious, much less fucking chatting about it. Just who was this guy?

A few days later– Hide could only tell the time from Ayato’s sporadic visits–  someone’s soft weeping pulled the blond out of a boredom induced stupor. He wondered with a twinge of concern how many hours he had lost, completely numb to everything except suffocating loneliness.

Hide turned to face the source of the crying, but the barely discernible shuffling of fabric caused the person to fall silent. A mourning child with a horrified expression materialized out of the shadows once his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He eased off his cot to be eye-level with the girl. In any other situation, he'd let a stranger sort their own issues out, but two weeks of isolation had realigned his normal tendency to avoid confrontation.

She wiped her tears away with bruising force and wobbled to her feet. “Hey, it's okay,” Hide interjected.

The girl tilted her head, and a curtain of brown hair obscured her face. “No, it's not. My entire family is gone.” She dragged her feet to leave.

“I meant it's okay to be upset,” he told her, wishing he could follow his own advice.

The girl collapsed to her knees, covering her mouth with one hand. Silent tears fell for all those who could no longer weep for themselves. Maybe she cried for the lonely human as well.

Hide reached out between the bars and took her cool hand. She didn't draw away, accepting the stranger’s mute comfort.  

After some time passed and her voice no longer shook, she introduced herself as Fueguchi Hinami.

“I'm Nagachika Hideyoshi, but that's a mouthful, so you can call me Hide.”


	4. It Must be August

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You’ve waited long enough! There’s a lengthy author’s note at the end if you’re wondering what the hell took so long for this update. Also, I tried a new transition format, so let me know if it’s too confusing or you simply liked the asterisks (***) better.

 “I will not bow

I will not break  
I will shut the world away  
I will not fall  
I will not fade  
I will take your breath away,” I Will Not Bow by Breaking Benjamin

 

Despite not having access to a cell phone in months, whenever Hinami gushed about understanding a new kanji, Ayato revealed a hint of a smile, or Tatara’s eyebrows pinched together ever-so-slightly in annoyance, Hide’s hand unconsciously grazed the hem of his pocket, wanting to share the moment with Kaneki.

With the change of the season, an inescapable chill settled deep in his bones, and Hide's fingers unconsciously reached to type out a mindless message to his friend:

_Hey dreamer-boy, don't 4get 2 ware a jaket 2day!_

Hide caught himself in the act, feeling for the smooth edge of a non-existent phone and imagining a lonely boy shivering while reading a book. The unforgiving passage of time since his last meaningless precious conversation felt surreal as he wondered which grammatical atrocity Kaneki would address first in his mock-outraged reply. After all, as a literature student, it was his sworn duty to correct such horrifying writing sins.

That version of Kaneki, the one who choked on his coffee in excitement and believed in living for love and revolution, kept Hide company in daydreams as he waited for this final battle of wills to end. The impending loser either being Eto, realizing Hide is completely useless, or Hide, telling Eto what really happened beneath streets of Tokyo.

Thinking of the end result after both outcomes, because either way Hide’s life became as worthless as an expired coupon, sent a wave of goosebumps down his arms.

“I really miss you, Kaneki,” Hide admitted to the lifeless air in his empty cell, his entire world for half of a year.

And while he lied on his cot, face throbbing from rejection, his lonely world flourished into a galaxy of isolation with stars composed of unspoken confessions and barren planets cultivated from formidable scars.

 

_Before the end of summer_ , Hinami saved Hide. Yes, in the metaphorical sense, but also in the keeping him from physically dying way as well.

One afternoon after several weeks of watching the skin beneath Hide’s cheekbones sink into shadows, warping his easy grin into a gaunt smirk from the starved look in his eyes and decreasing flesh, Hinami remained with him instead of rushing off the moment Ayato strode back into Aogiri territory in the evening.

Hide looked at Hinami with the intensity of an intern asking the bomb squad leader whether to cut the red or blue wire, breaking her focus and softening her serious features, “What is your favorite word?”

The ghoul covered her mouth to squelch the anticlimactic burst of giggles. After she composed herself, Hinami said, “Usurai. Do you have one?”

Covering the healed bite marks on his arm, Hide answered with a thoughtful expression, “It's an English word called indelible.”

Hinami leaned closer, “Indelible?” she prompted.

“Well, the definition means permanent or unable to be washed away, usually to describe markers. But sometimes it's used as a way to say ‘this is important to me, and I will never forget it.’ So I like to think it can define certain people too,” he said with an unconscious smile. The sentiment gave Hinami a wordless sense of comfort, and she finally understood why Hide and Kaneki were such close friends.

Ayato, hands full of newspapers and bags emanating the reek of human food, kicked open the door and startled the conversation to a close.

 

_In a separate_ _universe entirely_ , Eto leaned precariously off the edge of her cluttered bed and pressed a button on the side of her recorder. The device silently dangled between her thumb and forefinger before Hide’s careful voice accompanied with a soft buzz whispered into the otherwise quiet bedroom, just as it had in the edited cd she sent to the CCG a few days earlier.

“I think I'll make it out of here alive. I mean, I could be wrong, but I'd be too dead to really care that much.”

The ghoul’s lips curled into a smile. “What a terrible liar.” This newest obsession of hers desperately wanted to live, clinging to life with his flippant calm and ambiguous answers.

Her hair slipped off the edge of the sheets and pooled around her head as if she were a siren waiting beneath the sea for a ship to capsize. Unfortunately, her current victim had no crew to keep him from listening to the madness of her song and diving into the deceitfully serene waves. She held no objections against the human learning all he wanted; the only cost would be his life.

Eto slid the remainder of her body onto the floor with a sigh. Discarded food wrappers crinkled in protest from the descent while a heavy object rolled off the bed and hit the rug with a thud. She picked up the offensive item before raising it over her face for a short inspection. “You are just the inspiration I've been searching for,” the ghoul said, clicking her occupied hands together.  


_“Ayato, pal, do_ _you need_ a hand?” Hide asked once his heart restarted, making a mental note to stop relying on Hinami’s quick exits to judge Ayato’s and Tatara’s entrances to his hallway. And to stop referring to the hallway and prison cell as his.

“If you call me ‘pal’ one more time, I’ll break yours.” Ayato pushed the paper bags between the bars, and vegetables coated in brown sludge bruised as the action sent them tumbling across the stone floor. Hinami’s nose crinkled from the stench of rotten human blood while Hide pushed a soggy cucumber away from his body with the tip of his shoe.

At least a few of the peppers seemed mildly edible, as soaked in what appeared to be blood they were.

Ayato peeled open the sticky newspaper pages and perched on the backs of his heels, either not caring about Hinami’s presence or too drained from chasing leads across several wards to send her away. Even so, the sudden silence in the room grew into an opposing force. It compounded with the rot and weighed down the air, and Hinami wanted to leave just to breathe.

Hide broke the silence, “Hey, can I read one of those?” and the air became bearable once more. Hinami passed a newspaper to Hide when Ayato nodded without looking away from his own. The distracted gesture was so entirely ordinary and unlike Ayato’s usual aggression. Maybe talking to him could be possible, she thought with a hint of a smile.

Smoothing out the thin paper more times than necessary hid the slight tremor in Hide’s hands. The main article “Complete Report of the CCG Owl Extermination Raid!” gave him a conflicting mess of emotions. He breezed past the overview, soulless numbers of the dead and missing, and flipped to the names of known ghouls defeated in the raid.

Hide recognized a small number of names, and could only put a face to the infamous Devil Ape. His stomach twisted as he remembered that night with intense clarity. Had he been in V-14? No, he prefered the horrified expressions on the corpses to blend together and forced himself to read the names of his deceased co-workers.

Amon and Takizawa’s names and the following paragraphs of their neatly condensed lives somehow twisted his jaded heart into an uncomfortable knot. He had spent countless hours pouring over reports with Amon and Akira. He had _used_ Takizawa, seeing how ostracized he was and becoming his friend for information. Hide was no monster, and the guilt of seeing he left a family behind tore at his insides.

He continued reading with stiff fingers and a numb expression until he flipped the page.

“DECEASED-HIDEYOSHI NAGACHIKA” Apparently, Hideyoshi was recently promoted due to diligence in his work, was last seen in the Owl Extermination raid, and had no known living relatives. After new evidence came to light, the nineteen year old was announced officially dead.

The few sentences blurred into illegible tears of ink. Hide promptly folded the newspaper, grabbed his bucket, and retched until only stomach acid bubbled through his esophagus.

Ayato and Hinami believed his excuse “The Smell finally got to me,” but recalling that moment with utmost sincerity, something he rarely used with any living being, he had come to the conclusion that the CCG had cut their losses, and the value of his life had diminished considerably.

No person with a sound mind would waste their time trying to save a corpse.

 

_Leaving the hallway with the_ bucket of puke and falsely accused vegetables, Hinami blurted out, “Ayato, you’re going to starve him to death.”

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, taking note of her diligent stare at the ground and tight grip on the bag. That pathetic look of care made him want to lash out at her for insubordination, cut away that audacity to have anything but blind obedience to his orders,

And consider telling her the truth. He despised Hide for binding him to this pathetic piece of land and taking away his freedom to roam as he pleased. He almost feared that intelligent glean in his eye, tearing him to shreds with a single look and understanding the pieces as he built him back together. The man had some power over Eto, or else she wouldn’t have separated him from the others, and that terrified the shit out of Ayato.

Not to mention, he had no idea the basic care involved in taking care of a human, and he would be damned before he asked anyone to help.

“I feed that weirdo every single day. Don’t think so much about him,” Ayato said in response. Pushing aside his conflicting emotions, he continued on. “Seriously, you’re going to get attached to that human, and when he ends up on your table in the basement, it’ll probably break your little heart.”

Hinami flushed as if Ayato had turned around and slapped her. He seemed sincere with his advice, but his delivery could not have been more cruel. “I-I understand, Mr. Ayato.”

The two walked in silence until they parted ways. Ayato found an empty room and rinsed out the bucket with a growing sense of resentment brewing in his heart. He couldn’t get the thought of Hinami, his sister’s replacement sibling, out of his mind. She was way too soft, always crying over picking apart stranger’s bodies and hanging around Hide during her free time. Now she even cared about his well-being.

Ayato couldn’t figure out why he told her to stay away from Hide. That guy’s fate was sealed, as obsessed as Eto was with him, but he had no business getting concerned with Hinimai’s potential feelings about that awful future.

He turned the circular spout and the tepid water gave a final flourish, spraying the entirety of Ayato’s front half with a million or so gray spots on his outfit. His expression soured as he kicked the wall and reaffirmed his stance that this place sucked.

 

_In an abandoned room, away_ from prying eyes and ears, Hinami placed her stolen food on an ancient shelf and a hot plate alongside two dishes on the counter. She had found this kitchen a few weeks ago, but preferred to spend her time with Hide instead of wasting away in solitude.

She washed the disgusting blood down the drain, the sludge almost blending into the rust she couldn’t scrub away. Hinami bit her bottom lip to keep from crying as Ayato’s cold, but undeniably true words swirled in her mind.

He couldn’t know just how much doubt haunted Hinami late into the night. She hadn’t expected Hide to burrow past her defenses so quickly or to bring her so much comfort when he was basically a prisoner on death row.

“Ayato, you’re an idiot,” she muttered through gritted teeth. Hinami picked up a knife and cut away the bruised sections from the cucumbers. Kaneki had taught her how to cook one time for Touka’s school friend one afternoon, and she repeated the steps with a determined set to her shoulders. No one could understand how so much loss had turned her from someone who needed protecting to needing someone to protect. Hinami wasn’t weak, losing her friends to the unwavering cycle of violence had transformed her porcelain heart into iron, still malleable but strong enough to protect herself.

She covered the steaming bowl with an extra cloak and walked back with her shoes in her hand to Hide’s cell as silently as a ghost.

Hide noticed the white socks, bright against the surrounding darkness, before the rest of Hinami’s figure materialized from the shadows. She knelt down beside the bars. “I don’t know much about sick humans, but please eat and stay with me for a while longer, Hide.”

The warm bowl pressed against his leg. Hide set the food in his lap. He ate with his fingers, really have no choice in that matter. Hinami wilted in relief when he covered his mouth, the huge smile causing his eyes to nearly shut.

His stomach stretched beyond the point of comfort, and he ate until there was nothing left. “Thank you for the meal,” almost forgetting his manners after the past few weeks. She couldn’t seem to voice any words and nodded.

Hide owed her now. He hadn’t meant to use the sweet ghoul for anything other than information, but the shock of his deceased co-workers had unbalanced his guarded heart. “You know,” he began, the dark room and fullness of the moment causing a reckless sort of care for Hinami to form, “You don’t have to be a nameless nobody sloughing at the bottom ranks here.”

Her eyebrows drew together in confusion and Hide continued. “I think you could become more important and not have to work in the basement anymore. Your senses are kind of extraordinary and if you show the right person, you’ll have some freedom to make your own decisions.”

Hinami looked at Hide’s bright eyes with wonder. “There’s-no.. I don’t know how..” She shook her head, dismissing the idea.

Hide reached through the edge of his prison and rested his hand on Hinami’s arm. The touch broke through her doubt, and Hide spoke for half an hour, giving her a step-by-step plan to social mobility in Aogiri Tree.

The next day, Hinami approached Ayato and volunteered to deliver messages to people who didn’t want to be found. After being initially brushed off, she proceeded to produce a complete list of the ghouls in the stronghold, give a brief summary of every conversation, and announce the arrival of two new recruits. Ayato gaped at her ability, not realizing how this powerful ghoul had kept her talent hidden for so long.

She never went into that ugly dissection room again, and Hide received a meal nearly every night with growing variety as Hinami gained an allowance and escaped the overbearing watchfulness of being a nameless scrub.

 

_After having one idea turn_ little results, Eto called for another visit with her mysterious prisoner. The overbearing heat and humidity curled her hair into a hazy green cloud around her head, and caused a light sheen of sweat to cover Hide’s face when he entered the windowless room.

“It must be August,” he commented without much intention backing the statement as he settled into his chair. The endless layers of blood in the room had mysteriously vanished since his last visit. The walls were the same dull gray as his cell.

“It is. This heat has drained the motivation out of everyone. The streets are empty and the sun is bright.” Eto was far above talking about something as mundane as the weather and turned her pen in a captivating swirl throughout her fingers, “I’m curious, Hideyoshi, just how did a frightening individual like yourself capture the attention of our dear protagonist, Kaneki Ken?”

Hide choked a bit at the word frightening. “I don’t know where that came from.” He drummed his fingers in thought. “Well, I’d say it was because we were two guys in the same class when we were kids. Constant exposure to each other probably made us friends.”

Lips pursed, Eto marked a line in her notebook. Hide noticed nearly an entire page of tally marks with his name at the top and dread locked his muscles in place. The ghoul smiled as Hide subconsciously placed his hands on his lap and sat up slightly straighter.

He must be concerned.

“Didn’t I mention,” she said cryptically, “that our relationship would work more smoothly if we told each other the truth?”

Hide didn’t respond, waiting for her next question.

She released a sigh, wishing to see more anxiety that never came. “I’m still interested in you, the best friend, so we could discuss your past instead of your childhood sweetheart. For example, why did you switch schools four times before settling in Tokyo?”

Mouth irritatingly dry, Hide spoke despite knowing he was arming this woman for a future attack against his friend, “He was just this lonely kid who didn’t talk to anybody. I asked him to be my friend, and he said yes. It was that simple.”

Eto reached forward and patted his head, flattening a brown strand of hair against his skull. “Isn’t it easier to tell your Eto the truth?” She leaned back into her chair. “What drew you to him? Let me guess… Someone was cruel and your sense of righteousness kicked in.”

“Hardly,” Hide breathed, “Kaneki was always reading and seemed more mature than our classmates. He already had that presence around him, some kind of-” he brought his hands in the air for a moment before allowing them to slowly descend. “Barrier. Yea, our classmates bullied him, but kids are mean to everyone. That didn’t make him special.”

Eto’s eyes followed the bite marks peeking out from the folded hem of Hide’s sleeve. A sweetly malicious thought occurred to her, but she could exploit that train of thought another day.

“What made our Kaneki special?”

Her bubbling excitement, the disturbing gleam in her eyes... Each word about Kaneki sold something away to this violent woman.

Hide thought for a minute, seeing the memory replay with only a touch of nostalgia marring the truth.

“I don't know.”

A grin, she loved it. “You don't know?” she parroted.

“Nope. I remember we were friends because I asked him. That's really it.” He closed his mouth to stop the babbling before it began.

Drawing a final line in red ink, Eto closed her notebook with a sigh. “I somehow believed we were going to have such a beautiful relationship Hide.” Her eyes focused entirely on his, a promise of unspeakable horrors against a reckless desire to do no more harm.

A hazy red mist crackled into shape behind Eto as she stood, the chair falling to the ground behind her with a clatter. Hide jumped from the sudden noise and release of tension, but continued the staring contest.The tip of Eto’s kagune stroked Hide’s cheek in a mimicry of human sympathy.

_Kagunes are so warm…_

“Do you remember?” She prompted as her last warning.

Hide’s entire body was frozen with terror. He pushed through his fear, thinking of someone else. “You're asking for something that I can't give you.”

A blush of a burn spread from the kagune’s touch like a drop of dye falling into clear water.

Eto leaned forward, placing both of her hands against the table. “I admire your idiotic bravery, Hide. But you seem intelligent enough to understand the next series of events should you continue your selective amnesia.”

He hid his expression so well, but the milky pallor taking over his skin proved just how terrified Hide was. Those honey-colored eyes were positively brimming with fear.

Eto decided she wanted to see this stoic man cry.

No warning. Was there movement? So hot, that's blood all down his- It doesn't matter. _itsfineit’sfineitsfuckingokaydont_ -

Eto ended the laceration in a curve towards his temple. Heads wounds always bled so profusely. The bit over his eyebrow neatly flowed in a carmine river down the corners of Hide’s eye. Beautiful.

No screaming, no salt perfusing the air, how disappointing and refreshing somehow. “By this point,” Eto breathed, “you should be willing to offer me anything to not hurt you again.”

With a voice much smaller than before, Hide responded, “You're going to do whatever you want to me regardless of what I have to say about it.”

She fell in love with her victim in that moment. “Then let me tell you what I'll do to you, Hide.” The truth, no omission or muddying her words, tasted sweet and lifted her heart, because Hide was _listening_ to her terror with blood streaming down and soaking his collar, a serious expression behind all that red.

Eto revealed a medical grade staple gun from the recesses of her smock. “Every lie you tell me will result in a kiss from my little device, understand?”

Hide couldn't help himself. “Why staples?”

The monster paused. “A publisher once sent back a manuscript with a sticky note attached to it. I read it over and over until I memorized the advice. ‘The world is not quite ready for this twisted interpretation of mankind. Try to connect with your audience instead of bullying them. Also, send your manuscript in with a paperclip instead of stapling it together. Any stapled work will be rejected.’”

The way she spoke was utterly captivating. Hide wanted to hear the end of the story.

“I stapled the entire border of my manuscript that evening, hearing the slight groan and two clicks as if it were trying to speak to me. Finally, I realized it was telling me ‘re-ject.’Can you hear it, Hide?”

He imagined his high school’s old, black stapler. The squeak of the ancient hinges, followed by two clicks puncturing the paper one right after the other. In his current state, he could hear the enraged author’s “reject.”

That word seemed to strike a nerve within her prey. Eto began her persuasion knowing he was in the proper emotional state after having time to feel the perfect amount of guilt from the newspaper she tucked into Ayato’s arms a few weeks ago.

_DECEASED-NAGACHIKA HIDEYOSHI_

She stapled the wound open, stretching the incision until the edges bulged with the surrounding skin.

_Nagachika Hideyoshi, 19 years old, is reasonably believed to be deceased after the CCG’s extensive investigation using DNA fragments to identify the victims of the 21st Ward Massacre._

Please stop this, a very human part of Hide’s mind silently pleaded.

_Nagachika was recently promoted to Investigative Assistant by his superior officer, Murade and was reported MIA shortly after the battle began._

Hinami faltered mid-conversation with a ghoul in a white suit. She heard someone dear to her suffering.

_He leaves no living family behind, and the CCG thanks him for his sacrifice in the war against Japan’s greatest threat._

Metal pierced the weeping crevice, having run out of room along the edges.

Cracked nails gripped the seat of the chair, the splits in the pink completely numb in comparison to pulsing agony across Hide’s face. His tense muscles shook with extreme tension, and the useless adrenaline tired his stagnant body. The aching fatigue provided enough of a distraction to pull Hide away from the violence.

His screaming ended with a shaky “fuck..”

Hide was far more resilient than Eto cared to mention. She pinched the slender device one last time, allowing herself a moment to marvel at the tremble radiating through the teenager’s entire body. The sweat and dozens of metallic pieces glittered with the movement and reminded Eto of a sticky summer evening and watching spots of sunlight dance like fairies over the ocean waves.

They understood the severity of each other in that moment. Eto would eventually kill Hide, but he would decide when.

 

_Ayato could barely stomach_ looking at Hide’s face when he stumbled out of the room. Hide seemed unaffected by the shock and obvious disgust on his face, asking if he could shower early.

“It's such a disgusting feeling, like I spilled juice and just let it dry.” If he would shut up and act fucking normal, Ayato might feel a little sorry for him.

Hide peeled the soiled clothes off his body and took a cold shower. Anything resembling warmth would definitely make him pass out. Each drop of water touching his face reignited the nauseating waves of

Hide redressed, being uncharacteristically ginger with the towel and his shirt. A sudden gleaming caught his eye in the mirror-

How could he have missed that horrid thing?

Hide almost touched the split skin, stretched into a white, bulging mass of flesh and angry metalwork. He looked like Frankenstein’s hideous little brother.

“That,” he said, his fingers trailed down the glass in awe, “is going to leave an ugly scar.”

Every small movement turned the metal into swarming cockroaches burrowing beneath his skin, so disgusting with the pink and white flesh dangling between their jaws.

The terrorist had stolen his face (can you hear it, Hide? re-ject)

His knuckles connected to the glass. Fractures spread in a latticework of misery before falling to the ground, each piece reflecting a silent point of view before shattering against the tile floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered writing a long, rambling explanation for my absence, but the extensive essay revolved around a few major points that I can sum up easily: the transition from graduating high school to starting college, fixing up my mom’s new house, and other various events have consumed a majority of my free-time since I posted last year; my mindset since beginning this story has changed for the better, so much that I experience major bouts of writer's block when I attempt to connect with the characters; and most importantly, my intense love for Tokyo Ghoul is no longer substantial enough for me to appreciate :re anymore. Honestly, I was positive I could make this story canon-compliant, but e v e r y o n e becoming a half-ghoul really turned me off from the story, and the pure, ridiculous transition from supernatural tragedy to a shonen with horror elements has simply… Writing for a series I no longer enjoy or even support is very difficult for me. 
> 
> Now that I’m finished with way too much over-sharing, I’m really sorry for not giving any warning for the hiatus. I’ve updated the tags to include “Indefinite Hiatus” as a warning to new readers that I can’t commit to scheduled chapter updates. I may post again next month, I may post again in another year. Not purposefully of course (I promise I’ve learned my lesson; I’ll make certain to have any future projects completely written out so this doesn’t happen again).
> 
> If you’ve been following this story for a while, thank you, dear reader, for being patient with me. When I truly want to give in and abandon RP, I read your comments and find myself excited to continue writing.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone else love to hurt others with puns?
> 
> Let me know if I should continue this story; I absolutely love responding to comments with questions, ego boosting compliments, or if I left an error that's making your eye twitch.


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